Working With Your Significant Other

I don’t know about you but one of the hardest parts of my day was saying goodbye to my wife in the morning. I knew that it was not goodbye forever, but I still missed her. Now I know it’s sappy and maybe not all of you feel the same when you have to say goodbye to your significant other in the morning, but I’m sure there is someone out there that feels the same way. Fortunately for me, I don’t have to experience that feeling anymore. See, I quit my old job and so did my wife and rather than finding a new one we decided to start our own business, together. Now neither of us have to say goodbye in the morning, which is fantastic. However, we quickly realized that as with many things, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Working with your spouse is hard. We have made our fair share of mistakes and have had a few fights, but we have come out stronger than ever. We want to share some of our experiences, the good and the bad, in the hope that it can help other couples that work together or answer some questions for couples who are thinking about working together. So here is our list of the best and worst parts about working with your spouse. Oh, before I forget I should tell you that most of these points have a good and bad side to them. This list is about figuring out a way to keep the good parts and get rid of as much of the bad parts as possible.
•Our first point is probably the most obvious but it is the root cause of most of the issues that spring up from working together, and that is you spend A LOT of time together. Don’t get me wrong, it is great getting to spend so much time with the person you love, but there are some downsides you need to make sure you watch out for. It doesn’t matter who it is, whenever you spend a lot of time with the same person there is a tendency to get annoyed with that person, it’s an entirely natural response. But no one wants to be annoyed at their spouse on a regular basis, and that isn’t good for a healthy relationship. So how do you combat that issue?
•It is essential to find something that you do on your own or with friends without your significant other. It doesn’t matter what it is nearly as much as just making the time for it. This can sometimes be hard if you have a lot of the same interests as your significant other because you don’t want to leave them out of things that you both enjoy. Nonetheless, try to find a hobby or a friend group that you can pursue on your own.
•While it is important to have a hobby that you do on your own, it is equally important to set specific times to just hang out or have date nights with your spouse. When you spend all day working together it is easy to carry over a working mentality into other parts of your personal life, it happens naturally, and if you don’t actively work on separating work from personal time, it won’t happen. That is why it is so important to pick a night of the week to have a date night. Another good rule of thumb is to choose a designated time each night where work stops and doesn’t resume until the morning. Sometimes this doesn’t work because there are times that you have a project that you have to finish by the next day and you have to work later than normal but generally having a specific stop time is a good rule to follow. This is especially true for couples that work from home. When your living space is also your office, it is very easy to feel like you should be working all of the time. Delineate work hours beforehand and try your best to stick to them. Treat it like a regular job where there are set hours, and that will go a long way in helping you and your spouse have personal time together and will allow you to maintain a work-life balance.
•We have talked a lot about how to manage things outside of the working relationship between you and your spouse, but it is equally important to manage how you work together throughout the day. Something that can be difficult to figure out at first is the fact that there are two different relationships going on between you and your spouse. You have the working relationship and your personal / love relationship. The natural inclination is to treat the two relationships the same but you will quickly figure out that you have to learn to work together and compromise differently in your working relationship than you do in your love relationship. This requires some trial and error to figure out what works best for you. Once you realize this, it will also help with some of the other things we have already talked about such as transitioning from work time to personal time.
•Part of the working relationship includes dividing up responsibilities. Hopefully there is some contrast in this area where one person’s weakness is the others strength; otherwise it might be a bit more difficult to assign responsibilities. Try to be as fair as possible and play to each other’s strengths whenever possible. Always remember each person brings something unique to the table whether it be their ideas, creativity, skills, or passion. It is also crucial that you both are not trying to be the boss at the same time. Many disagreements can come if this happens. There will be assignments that you both do not enjoy, and there will also be ones that you both argue over who will get to take it on. Do your best to split up and assign tasks equally.
At the end of the day don’t let work get in the way of your relationship. Working with your spouse is certainly not meant for everyone, and that is okay. It doesn’t say anything wrong about you as a couple if you don’t enjoy working together. However, if you can make it work, it can be an amazing way to create a stronger bond between the two of you.
